Category Archives: Ethnic relations

An outspoken regime critic and leader of a minority ethnic community has gone missing in Tajikistan. The country’s internet users have largely missed his disappearance. The reactions from those who have paid attention to this case show that xenophobic attitudes run deep within Tajik society.

I do not usually use this blog to post articles that have not been written by me, but maybe it is time to change the practice. EurasiaNet.org has just published a very interesting article about ethnic Uzbeks living in Tajikistan. The piece is reposted below.

Tajikistan’s Ethnic Uzbeks: Poor Like Everyone, But Sidelined More
Originally published by EurasiaNet.org, February 24, 2011

Ask one of the million-plus ethnic Uzbeks living in Tajikistan how bad life is and he’ll quickly admit: It could be worse. Looking across the border into Kyrgyzstan, many give thanks they have been spared the pogroms suffered by Uzbek communities there twice in the last generation. But Uzbeks in Tajikistan often feel that state policy works against them, and sometimes it seems that the best keeper of the peace among ordinary people has been the deplorable poverty common to them all.Continue reading →